How exactly is anything he said ad hominem? He criticized your argument as being partisan and exaggerated but did not mention or imply anything negative about you as a person. That's pretty much the dead opposite of an ad hominem attack.

You're pointing out flaws that are largely unnoticed and/or unconcerning to the majority of Steam users. No one is really debating their existence, though I would seriously debate the obviousness and practical troublesomeness of several. More importantly is the question of if a majority of consumers decide that those flaws are more than made up for by advantages the system brings. I think sales numbers overwhelmingly prove the answer to that.

Besides you're missing the point of the thread. Whether Steam is great or not doesn't matter, it's just a distribution platform that you can choose to use or not use. Clearly you choose not to use it, clearly many more people choose to. Steamworks is great it's a free set of tools that allows developers to not be forced to reinvent several wheels and instead concentrate on making their game. Forcing Steam and Steamworks together is not so great. It's a perfectly reasonable and smart business decision on the part of Valve but it irrevocably ties their distribution platform to games. Now people are deciding to use Steam not based on its worth as a distribution platform but as a function of which games use Steamworks. That disincentives them to make improvements to Steam and creates a higher barrier for entry into the digital distribution market for potential competitors that could bring improvements. It's good for Valve but can be bad in the long run for digital distribution and since PC gaming will soon be digital distribution that too.

Not that it's totally clear cut, monopolies do tend to cause stagnation but they also offer stability and standardization. I'd much rather have a Steam monopoly than have each major publisher with their own distribution platform. A fragmented landscape of distributors that can be picked off one by one. Which is still a real possibility if Activision or EA decide to buy one of the current runners up and withhold content from all other platforms. The only thing that's stopping them is the fact that Steam brings in huge amounts of money right now this quarter and pulling their catalog or refusing future titles hurts their short term profits which is all their shareholders care about. So yeah, a dominant Steam is worse than multiple independent distributors but it's a good sight better than vertically integrated and mutually exclusive publisher owned distributors.

So do I complain about Steamworks/Steam integration because it helps kill off independent distributors or do I celebrate it because it makes Valve strong enough to ensure there is at least one independent too big to be knocked off by a publisher? Honestly, not sure.

It also requires Windows so I'm not buying it because of that.

I would rather support the only AAA PC exclusive that I have seen in a long time.

Before I get to the substance of your words, let us first examine vocabulary. You use the term "partisan" to describe me (you infer that another user criticized my argument as being partisan, but he never used that word), but in order for me to be a partisan I must belong to a particular faction or otherwise support a specific faction. That is not the case.

As for your claims that he was not engaging in ad hominem, you should consider rereading his statements. To claim that someone is on a "crusade" is to not argue a point but to discredit an opponent. A valid, logically-sound response to my argument could resemble, "I disagree with your points for the following reasons." An ad hominem attack, however, reads like, "I disagree with you because you're crazy."

To paraphrase:

"Okay, so you aren't really a partisan, but I'm going to claim that you are, because I believe that you are part of an informal group, henceforth known as X."

"If someone implies that you are a zealot, it's not ad hominem because it's only a subtle attack on your character. Nuance!"

I giggle every time I read this statement. So any ad hominem can be excused based on context? When is ad hominem not employed in the context of some larger argument? Why would anyone invoke an ad hominem, if not to avoid substantive argument by discrediting another participant? There is always context! The absurdity of your claim is both amusing and infuriating. What?

You are hung up on "context." Any attempt to discredit an opponents character, regardless of its relation to the context of the argument, is ad hominem. There are different types of ad hominem, so perhaps you are limiting yourself to a stricter definition. I can't think of a more effective ad hominem than the crusader or zealot label, because it discredits an opponent by portraying him as illogical and blind to reason.

A simplified case follows:

"How can we believe what John says about the quality of Mountain Farm vanilla ice cream? He's a chocolate zealot! If it's not chocolate, he hates it, regardless of the quality."

The above employs a logical fallacy because it disqualifies John based on his character and preferences, and does not address his argument. If you argue the person instead of the argument, it is ad hominem.

That's nice, I guess. Sadly, feelings are irrelevant.

It appears that we suffer from a fundamental disagreement in the realm of semantics.

In the interest of this thread, we should move on.

For the record, I agree that it was a little inflamatory to claim that you were on a crusade. That was the onely thing I said that was remotely deragatory towards you though so I think your decision to ignore everything else I said and focus on that one thing is a bit extreme. But I will agree that I should have used a different word then that.

For the rest though, I feel I have pointed out any number of cases in which your arguments were exagerated or where your complaints against Steam were not reasonable that you have failed to in any way refute. So I stand by my statement that you may have a strong opinion beyond what is justified.

1. I am glad that troll like you wont be using Steam

2. Your flamebait was reported to moderators

3. nice false accusation

btw.: those black helicopters are tracking you even despite your premium quality tinfoil   

I did what now?

reply 714 ... yikes

also, that feeling wears off after a while ... whether a few hours, a few days, or a few months ... it wears off.

If you wish to become a true hate-master, you must master your hate, nurture it, and become a ball of resentment and loathing that lives for nothing but to see Steam suffer and burn.

You expressed an opinion that is different from his. That's not allowed. The logical response is to boycott a service you have nothing to do with.

So you still think it's justified to claim that it's horrible that steam assumes that people sometimes cheat in multiplayer games? That's the type of statement I was talking about that lead me to the very objective opinion that your going overboard with your criticism.

Anyway this discussion seems to have degenerated from us discussing Steam to us discussing whether you have been horribly wronged by my use of the word crusade, so it's probably fine to bring it to a close. It's pretty clear that it's accomplished as much as it's going to.